Charles Francis Brush, born on March 17th in Ohio and raised on his family’s Walnut Hills Farm. He demonstrated an interest and aptitude with engineering from a young age – so much so that his indulgent parents allowing him space to build a workshop in their home. At the age of 12 he built a static electricity machine, using a bottle, a piece of leather and amalgam from an old mirror. He made batteries, electromagnets, induction coils and small motors. The coils were made with rusty wire, with the rust and some shellacked paper acting as insulation. During this time he learnt of Humphrey Davy’s 1808 experiment with an arc light and while at Cleveland Central High School had access to electrical apparatus at the physical laboratory and was able to build his first arc light before he left his High School with honours. 

George Westinghouse Jr

George Westinghouse Jr, was born in 1846 in Pennsylvania. He was an American inventor and entrepreneur who created the railway air brake and was a pioneer in the electrical industry, gaining his first patent at the age of 19. Westinghouse saw the potential of alternating current as an electricity distribution system in the early 1880s and put all his resources into developing and marketing it, a move that put his business in direct competition with the Edison direct current system.

Thomas Alva Edison

Thomas Alva Edison was born in 1847 in Ohio, the same state as Brush. He was an American inventor and businessman who has been described as America's greatest inventor. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, which include the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the long-lasting and practical electric incandescent light bulb.

1851 – The Great Exhibition was held in London, showing “Works of industry of All Nations”. This featured scientific and material wonders from throughout the Victorian world, including examples of early photography, telefax machines, telescopes, and more.

1853 - Elihu Thomson was born in Manchester but his family moved to Philadelphia (United States) in 1858. He attended Central High School in Philadelphia and graduated in 1870. Thomson took a teaching position at Central, and in 1876, at the age of twenty-three, held the Chair of Chemistry. In 1880, he left Central to pursue research in the emerging field of electrical engineering He was an engineer and inventor who was instrumental in the founding of major electrical companies in the United States, the United Kingdom and France.

1856 – Nicola Tesla was born on 10 July 1856 in modern day Croatia. He was a Serbian-American inventor, electrical engineer, mechanical engineer, and futurist who is best known for his contributions to the design of modern alternating current (AC) electricity supply system. He later worked with Continental Edison in Paris, then in Edison Manufacturing in New York and later with Westinghouse, who licensed his AC induction motor.

1864 - Brush decides to continue his education at University with help from his uncle, and in 1869 he graduates at the University of Michigan with a degree in Mining Engineering (electrical engineering did not exist at the time). After graduating, with a friend they started dealing with iron ore, which gave him a comfortable living

1867 - In Germany, Werner von Siemens described a dynamo without permanent magnets. A similar system was also independently invented by Charles Wheatstone, but Siemens became the first company to build such devices.

1869 – Charles’ education culminates in a graduation from the University of Michigan in 1869 with a degree in Mining Engineering, as academic qualifications in electrical engineering did not exist at the time. 

1870’s - Brush’s early work revolves around optimising the design of the arc lamp  – first used in this decade for street illumination and a safer alternative to gas lighting. These generate light through the ‘arc’ of a high voltage current between two electrodes. These were most commonly made from charcoal however, in order to be commercially viable they required a reliable power source, from a powerful enough generator – with Brush securing a patent to improve magneto-electric machines in 1877. 

1872 – The Cleveland Telegraph & Supply was founded with George Stocky as a major stockholder.

1873 – Brush set up a small laboratory to continue his experiments with electricity and thought about the Arc light being powered by a dynamo. He reacquainted with George Stockly, a boyhood friend, who was vice president of the Telegraph Supply Company of Cleveland, and who, impressed with Brush’s findings, supported the development of Brush’s arc lamp and dynamo.

1875 – Brush marries Mary Ellen Morris and has three children - Edna, Helene, and Charles Jr. Charles Jr. followed in his father’s footsteps, eventually attending Harvard and majoring in chemistry and physics before founding Brush Wellman in 1931. His daughter Edna Brush Perkins goes on to become a well-known reformer, writer, and life-long advocate for Women’s Suffrage. 

1876 – Brush secures the backing of the Telegraph Supply company to produce his design for an economic and efficient open coil dynamo.

In England, the Falcon Works starts producing the first Hughes Steam Locomotive which was tried coupled to a trailing tramcar in the City of Leicester. A year later he would deliver a steam locomotive named “The Pioneer” to the Swansea and Mumbles Railway Company.

1877 - Brush improved upon the best features of all these and obtained patent US 189,997 for his own dynamo which had an armature shaped like a disk with an open coil and four electromagnets (2 north and 2 south pole shoes). He used a battery to energise the electromagnets at the start. Brush believed he had a design that would prove to be superior to the Gramme and seeing the potential ahead he quit the iron ore business. By the end of 1877 he also had a commercially viable arc-lamp and was now ready to market his lighting system.

1878 – Brush sells the first commercial lighting system to Dr Longworth in Cincinnatti. In the meantime, Edison began working on tackling the problem of creating a long-lasting incandescent lamp, something that would be needed for indoor use. Many earlier inventors had previously devised incandescent lamps, but these early bulbs had such flaws as an extremely short life, high expense to produce, and high electric current drawn, making them difficult to apply on a large scale commercially. 

1878 - The Franklin Institute of Philadelphia launched an evaluation of dynamos and tested various models including the Gramme model from Europe.

The Brush dynamos were found to produce strong currents and to be easier to maintain due to the simplicity of their design and in the end the Franklin Institute purchased a Brush dynamo, which effectively endorsed it as the machine of choice for producing electricity.

The testing committee included the prominent electrical scientist, Elihu Thompson, who would later form his own company to produce arc lighting in competition with Brush, until the two merged in 1889.

The arc light had been invented long before, but it wasn’t practical. A very bright light was created by passing an arc of electricity between two carbon rods. The problem was the light didn’t last long because the electric current burned up the carbon rods which had to be kept at a set distance to form an arc. Brush solved this problem by finding a way to reliably regulate the distance between the rod tips.

Part of what is fascinating about early lamps is the range of ingenious mechanisms that were tried to do this. Everything from manually adjusted designs to complex clockwork mechanisms.

Brush developed a system that was a combination of an electromagnet with a mechanical linkage to move the upper carbon electrode, that was regulated by a “ring clutch”, and this proved to be very reliable providing light of stable quality during operating periods of up to 8 hours.

It became the first commercially viable arc-lamp and Brush continued to make many improvements to the regulation mechanism, to the electrodes and also developing a shunt system so that they could be reliably connected in series, which was critical for street lighting. This marked the birth not only of the electrical lighting industry, but also of central station distribution, the foundation of modern electrical engineering. The carbons on the lamps only lasted 8 hrs, and had to be manually changed every day, which was inconvenient. In order to overcome this problem, he developed the double carbon arc lamp, which extended the continuous operation time from 8 to 16 hours, and continued to improve the carbon material and its coating to provide durability and improve cost efficiency.

1879 – John Wanamaker hired Brush to install lights in his Philadelphia department store. The lights were described by one observer as “twenty miniature moons on carbon points held captive in glass globes”. The age of electrical lighting had been born. Dynamo sales were meagre until Brush perfected and successfully demonstrated his new arc light system on Cleveland's Public Square on April 29, 1879, with twelve lamps around the park, powered in series by a dynamo housed in the Telegraph Supply Company of his friend George Stocky.  At that point, sales of both the system and the dynamo used as its central power source increased, crowding out the Telegraph Supply business. During the same period he was able to promote the formation of the California Electric Light Company of San Francisco, the first electric central station in the world. It has two Brush dynamos supplying twenty-two arc lamps. 

1879 – The Anglo-American Electric Light Company was formed in London to acquire the sole licence for manufacturing and supplying the Farmer-Wallace Dynamo Electric Light that had been developed in America.

1879 - Both Edison in the US and Sir Joseph Wilson Swan in UK were working to produce a suitable filament for a lightbulb, it was Swan who demonstrated a working incandescent lightbulb using a carbon filament on 3 February 1879 at a meeting of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle upon Tyne, several months ahead of Edison.

After many experiments, Edison developed later that year an incandescent lamp that lasted 13.5 hours, and on November 4, 1879, filed for U.S. patent 223,898 for an electric lamp using "a carbon filament or strip coiled and connected to platina contact wires". This was the first commercially practical incandescent light. Edison made the first public demonstration of his incandescent light bulb on December 31, 1879, in Menlo Park.

1880 – Over 5000 Brush arc lamps are in operation representing 80% of all arc lamps used at the time. In order to keep pace with the demand for Brush lighting systems, the Telegraph Supply Company of Cleveland underwent significant restructuring giving birth to the The Brush Electrical Company which capitalized at $3 million, with the aim of manufacturing and selling Brush street lighting systems. The company built a factory of 200,000 sqf. on Mason St., which employed 400 people. Brush street lighting provided better light than gas illumination at one-third the cost, and sales were brisk. Initially, Brush Electric supplied New York City, Boston, and Philadelphia among others. Brush arc lights had spread throughout America and Europe, and were appearing in Shanghai and Tokio.

The honorary degree of Ph.D was conferred upon him by Western Reserve University.

The Anglo-American Electric Light Company recognised the superiority of the Brush arc-lamp and dynamo and bought the world-wide rights to the Brush system outside North America. It was reconstituted on 4th December 1880 as the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation Ltd and a larger factory, the Victoria Works, was set up at 112 Belvedere Road in Lambeth, near Waterloo Station.

1881 – Brush made another contribution of great importance to the electrical industry: he developed the first practical storage battery and filed a patent for it. Up to the time of its invention, batteries could not be made effective until they had “built themselves up” by a very slow formation of a thick oxide coating upon the lead plates. The now Dr. Brush conceived the idea of supplying oxide in the first place, and pressing it up into a suitable support.

By this time Brush’s system ends up “quietly taking possession of the field”. His lighting solutions appeal due to their reduced need for maintenance, and reliability compared to other competitors – with his generators providing dependable, current constancy and an ability to automatically increase voltage when required. 

By this time, major cities throughout the US such a New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Montreal, Buffalo, San Francisco, deploy Brush systems. Arc lights changed life in American cities greatly. Night time activities become more popular and streets became safer to be out after dark. One of the first moonlight towers of was built in San José, California with a height of 237feet (72m) from which six 4,000 candle Brush Arc Lamps illuminated the city from above.

Broadway was lit by Brush lamps in 1881. During this period, the San Francisco plant proved to be the world’s first example of a utility selling plant-supplied electricity to consumers through distribution lines – two years before Edison’s famous Pearl Street Station completes the same task. 

He was decorated by the government of France with the Chevalier of the Legion of Honour.

1882 – The Brush Company started delivering power taken from a hydroelectric plant from St. Anthony Falls Missouri.

In June 1882, Swan sold his U.S. patent rights to the Brush Electric Company who now also added incandescent lighting to their offering.

The Australasian Electric Light, Power and Storage Company was established by the Anglo-American to exploit the Brush system in the Australian colonies.

Moonlight towers were erected in a few cities. Detroit had a particularly extensive system of light towers inaugurated in 1882 with 122 towers, 175 feet (53 m) tall and 1,000–1,200 feet (300–370 m) apart downtown, shorter, less powerful, and twice as far apart elsewhere. Some of those original towers stand today in Austin, Texas.

In the Netherlands, two young entrepreneurs, Willem Smit and Adriaan Pot establish the Elektrisch Licht-Machinen Fabriek Willem Smit & Co. This was the beginning of Smit Slikkerveer later known as Holec Machines and Apparaten (HMA) and then HMA Power Systems.

1882 – Elihu Thompson with Edwin J. Houston, a former teacher and later colleague of Thomson's at Central High School, founded Thomson-Houston Electric Company. A group of investors, mainly shoe manufacturers from Lynn, led by Charles A. Coffin bought into Thomson and Houston's American Electric Company and moved its operations from Connecticut to a new building in Lynn, Massachusetts.

Notable inventions created by Thomson during this period include an arc-lighting system, an automatically regulated three-coil dynamo, a magnetic lightning arrester, and a local power transformer. Thomson's name is further commemorated by the British Thomson-Houston Company (BTH), and the French companies Thomson SA (now Technicolor SA) and Alstom (formerly Alsthom).

Edison established the first investor-owned electric utility in 1882 on Pearl Street Station, New York City. On September 4, 1882, Edison switched on his Pearl Street generating station's electrical power distribution system, which provided 110 volts direct current (DC) to 59 customers in lower Manhattan.

Edison sued Swan for infringement, but it was proved that Swan's patent on the incandescent light predated his. Edison lost in the British courts for infringement of Swan's patent. 

1882 – In the Netherlands, two young entrepreneurs, Willem Smit and Adriaan Pot establish the Elektrisch Licht-Machinen Fabriek Willem Smit & Co. This was the beginning of Smit Slikkerveer later known as Holec Machines and Apparaten (HMA) and then HMA Power Systems.

1883 – In England, trade recession in the late 70s and early 80s brought financial difficulties to Hughes. He partnered and ceded control to Normal Scott Russell and the company became Falcon Engineering and Car Works, which successfully went on to produce many locomotives. Hughes later emigrated to New Zealand where he set up the country’s first firm of Patent Attorneys. 

Swan's strong incandescent light patents in Great Britain led, in 1883, to the two competing lightbulb companies merging to exploit both Swan's and Edison's inventions, with the establishment of the Edison & Swan United Electric Light Company. Known commonly as "Ediswan" in UK. Eventually, Edison acquired all of Swan's interest in the company.

In the United States, the U.S. Patent Office had ruled on October 8, 1883 that some of Edison's patents were based on the prior art of William Sawyer and were invalid. However by this time Edison had commercial advantages and the backing of J.P. Morgan. Sawyer was supported by Albon Man, and the rights to his lamp known as the Sawyer-Man lamp were soon acquired by Thompson-Houston and later on licensed to Westinghouse.

1884 – Brush becomes interested in the electric furnace and designed the dynamo and electrodes with which the Cowles Brothers produced the first electrolytic aluminium.

The Brush company in London took up the distribution of electrical energy over longer distances and evolved a system of arc-lighting with alternators and transformers; The first Brush transformer was made.

Westinghouse started developing his own DC domestic lighting system and hired physicist William Stanley to work on it. Westinghouse became aware of the new European alternating current systems in 1885 when he read about them in the UK technical journal Engineering. AC had the ability to be "stepped up" in voltage by a transformer for distribution and then "stepped down" by a transformer for consumer use, allowing large centralized power plants to supply electricity long distance in cities with more disperse populations. This was an advantage over the low voltage DC systems being marketed by Thomas Edison's electric utility which had a limited range due to the low voltages used. Westinghouse saw AC's potential to achieve greater economies of scale as way to build a truly competitive system.

Sir Charles Parsons completes the first Parsons turbo-generator (which is nowadays preserved in the London Science Museum). It was the world’s first truly powerful steam turbine; They would become the dominant engine type for ships which needed high power and high speed.

1886 - With Westinghouse's backing, Stanley installed the first multiple-voltage AC power system in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, a demonstration lighting system driven by a hydroelectric generator that produced 500 volts AC stepped down to 100 volts to light incandescent bulbs in homes and businesses. 

That same year, Westinghouse formed the "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and later in 1889 it was renamed as "Westinghouse Electric Corporation".

In Britain, two fellow German immigrants, Hugo Hirst and Gustav Binswanger, establish the General Electric Apparatus Company, marking the origin of GEC which would become a UK public limited company in 1900 under the name of General Electric Company, and which eventually in the 1980s and 90s become the UK's largest and most successful company and private employer, with about 250,000 employees (the American GE had not been founded at this time).

1887 - by the end of this year the Thomson-Houston Electric Company had built 22 AC power stations, Westinghouse had 68 AC power stations and Edison 121 DC-based stations. This competition with Edison led a few years later to what has been called the "war of currents" between DC and AC proponents. Thomas Edison and his company were invested in DC and they launched a campaign to spread the public perception that the high voltages used in AC distribution were unsafe. 

Tesla developed an induction motor that ran on alternating current (AC), a power system format that was rapidly expanding in Europe and the United States because of its advantages in long-distance, high-voltage transmission. The motor used polyphase current, which generated a rotating magnetic field to turn the motor (a principle that Tesla claimed to have conceived in 1882).

1888 – Brush’s interest in harnessing natural energy culminates in the construction of a 60 foot windmill tower with a 56 foot rotor for his Euclid Avenue Mansion. The energy generated is used to charge a string of twelve batteries in Brush’s lab that go on to power three-hundred and fifty lightbulbs, a pair of arc lights, and a single motor in his home. It is considered as the first wind turbine to produce electricity.

Nicola Tesla developed the alternating current (AC) induction motor and related polyphase AC patents.

George Westinghouse licenses the Tesla AC induction motor and transformer patents. This was a time of extreme competition between electric companies. The three big firms, Westinghouse, Edison, and Thomson-Houston, were trying to grow in a capital-intensive business while financially undercutting each other. Thomson-Houston started offering local power plants to individual companies serving whole communities, accepting part payment in cash and the rest in loans backed by securities in the participating companies. By 1892 it had equipped 870 local power plants vs Edison General Electric which had equipped 375.

1889 – By this time the Brush company lost its dominance by failing to develop a large-scale research facility or expand the firm. Competitors adopted and copied the basic process of arc lighting to design and build more and better improvements to the system. Brush launches legal action against Thompson-Houston Electric, accusing them of patent infringement. Rather than fighting a legal battle, Charles A. Coffin from Thomson offered to buy Brush at $40 per share. Brush suggested $75 per share, an asking price of $3 million. Thomson-Houston accepted the next day. This merger did not affect The Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation based in London which had other investors. 

Charles F. Brush now semi-officially retires from the world of the electric industry – continuing to produce research covering the kinetic theory of gravitation and selling the world’s first piezo-electric featherweight stylus.

Charles F. Brush now semi-officially retires from the world of the electric industry – continuing to produce research covering the kinetic theory of gravitation and selling the world’s first piezo-electric featherweight stylus.

In the British company, HG Spencer Churchill, the Duke of Marlborough, became chairman of Anglo-American Brush after taking interest in the company following the installation of 1,000 lights, generators and equipment at his home of Blenheim Palace.

By 1889 the era of electric tramways had begun, with many successful installations in Germany in 1884 and the United States in 1888. Hampered by little knowledge of electricity, the Falcon Works management sought ways of linking the busines with electric traction.

At the same time, the ever-widening fields of power generation and utilisation brought new opportunities for expansion.  Anglo-American Brush was also seeking to enter the field of electric traction, and so resulted a merger of interests that had far reaching consequences.

The manufacturing capacity of Anglo-American Brush at the Victoria Works became strained to the extent that it was imperative to acquire larger production facilities. These considerations coupled with aa decision to extend activities into electric traction led to the acquisition of the Falcon Works in Loughborough.

On the 10th August 1889, Anglo-American Brush and Falcon Works become the Brush Electrical Engineering Company Limited

1890 - The Edison company, in collusion with Thomson-Houston, sought to arrange in 1890 that the first electric chair was powered with a Westinghouse AC generator, forcing Westinghouse to try to block this move by hiring the best lawyer of the day to (unsuccessfully) defend William Kemmler, the first man scheduled to die in the chair. The War of Currents would end with Edison’s financiers, mainly J. P. Morgan, pushing Edison Electric towards the adoption of AC. As a result, Edison took the decision to retire from the lighting business.

By this time 20 million arc carbon lights based on the original Brush design were produced annually.

The first power station with a Parsons turbo-generator started operation at Forth Banks Power Station, Newcastle, UK.

1891 - In Britain, Emile Garcke became Managing Director of Brush Electrical Engineering Co. He would hold that position and steer the fortunes of the company for the next 40 years.

Westinghouse builds the world's first industrial AC system (Ames Hydroelectric Generating Plant).

Brown Boveri & Cie (BBC) was founded in Baden, Switzerland, by Charles Eugene Lancelot Brown and Walter Boveri. who worked at the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon. Brown was the son Charles Brown who in 1871 had found the Swiss Locomotive and Machine Works (SLM) as a parallel enterprise after working many years with Sulzer Brothers developing their Steam Engines. In years to come SLM was to become part of Sulzer, which also would have dealings with Brown Boveri & Cie.

1893 – Westinghouse gets a huge boost winning the contract to GE to light the World’s Columbian Exposition (Chicago, Illinois) with their AC system and using the Sawyer-Man design incandescent lamps.

The Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston (CFTH) was formed in Paris, a sister company to GE in the United States. It is from this company that the modern Thomson Group would evolve; demerged in 1999 to form Thomson Multimedia and Thomson-CSF (now Thales Group). 

BBC Brown Boveri supplied Europe’s first large-scale combined heat and power plant producing alternating current. 

1895 – Charles F. Brush discovered the presence of the element Helium in the earth’s atmosphere.

Emile Garke and some of his associates in the Brush company set up the British Electric Traction Limited (usually referred to as the B.E.T.)

1900 – Electric Tramways were ordered in the hundreds and Brush built large new shops to cope with demand. A shop for making traction motors was erected with capacity of 1,000 motors a year. Large buildings for the seasoning of timber were built as well as a shop for the manufacture of bogies. The electric tramcar era had begun and it would last for 40 years. Brush tramcars would be exported to Moscow, St Petersburg, Bombay, Shanghai, Sudan, South America, Japan, New Zealand and many other countries.

The Central London Railway (third underground line in London) opens on 30 July 1900 using General Electric locomotives and carriages made by Brush Electrical Engineering Co and Ashbury Railway Carriage.

1901 – operation of first Westinghouse steam turbine generator installed at Hartford Electric Light Company. 

1902 – 1,500 people work at the Falcon Works and the site produces steam dynamos and turbo-generators

1903 – Emile Garke’s led British Electric Traction Co (B.E.T.) becomes the principal shareholder in the Brush Electrical Engineering Co.

1904 – Brush supplies the rolling stock for the Great Northern and City Railway, which was the fourth underground line in London. Together with the Central, they were the respective forerunners of London Underground’s Central and Northern lines. Brush has continued supplying the London Underground with traction motors, generators and switchgear until today.

1905 – Charles F. Brush founded the Linde Air Products Company after becoming interested in the invention of Dr Carl Linde for the production of oxygen from liquid air. Brush had offered Linde to uphold his previously disputed patents in exchange for 33% of the US company, and he succeeded having the Linde patents prevail.

Brush Electric in UK won the only substantial orders for steel railway carriages and continued to build wooden ones for other railway companies. The company also developed a Brush-Parsons turbine and a new type of reciprocating engine. There was an increased production of dynamos, motors and transformers

1907 – Emile Garcke becomes Chairman of Brush remaining in that position until his death in 1930. Garcke had founded the British Electric Traction Company (BET) in 1895 as an organisation to promote electric tramways as a means of public transport, and more than 80 companies became affiliated to it. It was Garcke’s vision and connections that steered Brush to the design and manufacture of tramcars and expanded the Brush Traction arm. Brush took the lease of the works of the British Automobile Development Co, adjoining the works at Loughborough, and were producing motor omnibuses and every type of commercial motor vehicle.

Garcke was famous for also having founded in 1896 the “Garcke’s Manual of Electrical Undertakings”, a comprehensive handbook and directory of British Electricity and Allied Manufacturing Industries which was published up to the 1960s.

1910 – Charles F Brush developed his Kinetic Theory of Gravitation read before the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where he demonstrated that certain materials of the same shape and mass can fall faster than others. It also postulated that the energy of the ether of space exists in the form of isotropic ether waves of very short wave lengths.

1911 – At the Electrical Exhibition in London, Brush Electrical and Engineering displays a steam turbo-generating set of the Brush-Parsons type.

1912 – Parsons supplied the largest turbo-alternator made to date (25,000kW) ordered for the Fisk Street station in Chicago

1913 – The American Institute of Electrical Engineers awards Brush the Edison Medal

1914 – The Brush company began manufacturing Ljungstrom steam turbines under licence, and it supplies rolling stock to the Bakerloo and Central London Railways. 

1915 - Brush Electrical and Engineering is chosen to support the Royal Navy in the provision of aircraft – producing 650 planes by 1919. 

1971 – The former Rotating Machines division was formed into Brush Electrical Machines Ltd, (abbreviated to BEM Ltd), which continued to produce electric motors and generators over a wide power range. Concurrently the other two main product divisions were converted into Brush Transformers Ltd and Brush Switchgear Ltd. The traction Division was converted into Brush Traction Ltd. Other divisions which have existed on the Falcon Works site have included Brush Control Gear.

1972 – The fuse manufacture of the Switchgear Division was formed as Brush Fusegear Ltd and based at the nearby Burton on the Wolds. Others which have existed on the Falcon Works site also included Brush Control Gear.

1979 – The year marked a centenary of the creation of Anglo-American Brush. Together with the celebrations, the company received the rail visit of “Sir Haydyn”, a small 0-4-0 saddle locomotive that was one of three that had been delivered by Hughes from to the Falcon Works in 1878 to the Corris Railway in Wales. It was 03 “Sir Haydyn” on whom Reverend Awdry based his character of “Sir Handel” shown in the Thomas the Tank Engine series. It was a fitting tribute as both “Sir Haydyn” and the Brush company had reached 100 years. Sir Haydyn is still active today at the Talyllyn Railway.

1988 - ASEA AB of Sweden merge with BBC Brown Boveri Ltd forming ABB (ASEA-Brown Boveri) 

1989 – Brush Celebrates 100 years with the visit of the founder’s grandson, Charles F. Brush III an archaeologist and an adventurer himself who was also the president of the famous Explorers Club of New York, which counts among its members some of the greatest adventurers of all time.